Category Archives: anger

I have control issues. Like if I’m not in control, I get out of control.

We did baby led weaning with the twins and it has gone very well so far, with a few exceptions. At 17 months they still do not know how to use a spoon or dip things into yogurt or hummus or that sort of thing. Part of that may be related to their developmental delays, but I don’t know. They aren’t *that* delayed.

They have, up until recently, been great about trying new things and eating many different types of foods. Lately though, they’ve gotten into the habit of turning up their noses at most vegetables, including ones they used to gobble up. I know this is supposed to be a normal phase in their development but it is making me absolutely crazy. The waste is near the top of my list. If they don’t want something they fling it onto the floor, and nothing makes me lose my cool more quickly than that.

Beyond that though, I am terrified of ending up with picky eaters. I just absolutely refuse to cook separate meals for each person in the family. I cook a meal, damn it, and y’all are going to eat it. I refuse to have the sort of children who freak out if they find a millimeter size piece of onion in a dish. I am not going to capitulate to food tantrums.

I keep reading that you should just let your kids make their own decisions about food, and I do that with the volume of food they eat. I provide a variety of foods and don’t include things I don’t want them to eat. We don’t have dessert (at least, they don’t) and I don’t offer what I consider junk food as part of their meals. For example, if we have sandwiches for lunch, chips are not a side dish.

It’s really getting to me that they are suddenly refusing so many foods and I am struggling to be calm about it. I know this is mostly about my own control issues but I don’t know how to deal with that either.